Minnesota goalie Josh Harding deflects a Vancouver shot in the first period, Tuesday night, at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, December 17, 2013. Harding stopped 29 of 31 shots, including 3 in the shoot out round in the Wilds 3-2 shoot out victory.(Pioneer Press: John Autey)

Wild head coach Mike Yeo talks with his team during the third period of a 4-3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks at the Xcel Energy Center Arena in St. Paul on October 5, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Sherri LaRose-Chiglo)

From the time the Minnesota Wild opened training camp in September, the expectations were clear.

And the team embraced them. They printed T-shirts for players to wear promoting their climb in the NHL, and they talked openly about the hopes for the upcoming season.

One season removed from their first playoff berth in five years, the Wild wanted more. Just making the playoffs this season wasn’t going to cut it.

They wanted to put themselves in a position where they could make some noise in the playoffs. Last season’s No. 8 seed in the Western Conference wouldn’t be good enough.

At the halfway point in the season, though, the Wild are either vastly underperforming or simply set expectations too high.

After blowing a 3-0 lead in Sunday night’s 5-4 home loss to the New York Islanders, Minnesota is 20-16-5 with 45 points, tied for ninth in the Western Conference.

Consistent with previous teams coached by Mike Yeo, the Wild have been inconsistent.

They opened the season with three wins in nine games. They had a stretch where they went 9-1-1. And now, they’ve lost their past five games and are 5-11-1 since Nov. 25.

For a team that raised expectations, that hasn’t been good enough.

“This is the same group that raised the expectations; this is the same group that got us to a point where we were in a good spot,” Yeo said recently. “And this is the same group that’s going to get us out of it.”

Heading into the second half, which kicks off Tuesday night at the Xcel Energy Center with a game against the St. Louis Blues, the Pioneer Press grades the team.

FORWARDS

Grade: D

Heading into the season, the Wild stressed a revamped offense. They were going to possess the puck longer and have cleaner entries into the offensive zone. Aside from a brief stretch, that hasn’t happened.

Even after breaking a scoring slump with eight goals in the past two games — both defeats — the Wild are averaging the second-fewest goals per game in the NHL and the fewest in the Western Conference.

Jason Pominville has been as good as hoped, and Mikko Koivu has played well. But the young players the Wild rely on heavily haven’t performed, they’ve been prone to scoring slumps.

To make matters worse, last year’s leading scorer, Zach Parise, is out indefinitely with a foot injury.

DEFENSEMEN

Grade: C

This is supposed to be the Wild’s bread-and-butter with help from two-way forwards. They’re a defensively oriented team, but at times this season they’ve had major mental lapses.

That certainly has been the case of late, with the Wild allowing 24 goals in their past five games. That’s after they spent the early part of the season in the top five of most defensive statistics. Because of the recent poor play, though, that’s dropped significantly.

The Wild also get little offensive production from their blue liners. Only one Wild defenseman, Jonas Brodin, has more than one goal.

Ryan Suter, Marco Scandella and Jared Spurgeon have played well, but the Wild have been too soft in front of their net and have lacked depth.

GOALIES

Grade: B

Niklas Backstrom entered the season as the team’s top goalie. But when he suffered an injury three games in, Josh Harding stepped in and has taken over.

Harding has been the best goalie in the league for much of the season and is in the top five of nearly every major statistical category.

Halfway through the season, Backstrom is on pace for career lows in goals-against average and save percentage.

The Wild seem to be playing better in front of Harding, but that’s been an unexplainable trend.

COACHES

Grade: D

Yeo led the team to the playoffs last season and is a big reason why expectations are higher. But the team hasn’t been good enough, and that ultimately falls on the coach.

The Wild have won the fewest road games in the Western Conference and lost nine of their past 10 away from St. Paul.

If things don’t change soon — perhaps this week — Yeo could be out of a job.

MANAGEMENT

Grade: B-minus

The front office was hindered over the summer when it couldn’t use a compliance buyout on winger Dany Heatley, whose $7.5 million cap hit has handcuffed general manager Chuck Fletcher. Heatley is virtually unmovable because of his contract, which means the Wild’s options are limited.

The summer re-signing of Spurgeon and Scandella looked great.

However, Yeo entered this season in a position where he had to rely heavily on young forwards. Halfway through the season, it doesn’t appear they are ready to take the step forward to allow the Wild to meet expectations.

Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle and Mikael Granlund look like they’re going to be very good players. But they’re all still just 21 and prone to inconsistency. They have combined for just 14 goals in 98 games.

OVERALL

Grade: C-minus

Perhaps expectations were set too high. Perhaps the Wild just aren’t a good enough team to meet them.

But, as Yeo said, this is the same team that raised those expectations. Midway through the season, just making the playoffs seems like a tall task.

At the current pace, it will take 102 points to get that final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Wild are on pace for 90. That means they likely would need a record of 27-11-3 in the second half to make the playoffs.

Chad Graff joined the Pioneer Press in April of 2013 -- long enough to cover three straight Wild playoff exits at the hands of the Blackhawks -- after working for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Boston Globe. He's lived in California and Texas, but most recently spent a decade in New Hampshire. He watched New England fans celebrate seven championships in his time there, yet somehow his only sports allegiance lies with Nebraska football.

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in Sports

It was clear early on that the Gophers women’s basketball team was in for a physical game against Army. Minnesota didn’t seem to mind all the hands, elbows and hips directed its way — the Gophers play in the Big Ten, after all — and earned a 70-52 victory over the Black Knights on Thursday night at Williams Arena. “I...

Top-seeded Concordia-St. Paul will make its ninth appearance in the NCAA Division II national semifinals after defeating No. 8 American International in three sets Thursday night at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D. The Golden Bears (33-2), who won 25-6, 25-16, 25-13, will face No. 5 Lewis at 7:30 p.m. Friday. No. 6 Alaska-Anchorage and No. 2 Palm Beach...

TORONTO — DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors pushed aside the Minnesota Timberwolves — again. With Toronto down 95-94 with 8:46 left, DeRozan and Lowry keyed a 17-4 Raptors run that took the game away from the youthful Timberwolves. Toronto eventually pulled out a 124-110 victory, handing Minnesota its 13th straight loss at Air Canada Centre. “We just...

Members of the Missouri Tigers volleyball team are ready to have about 5,500 people rooting against them Friday night at 7:15 p.m. when they take on Minnesota’s Golden Gophers in the first round of the NCAA volleyball Minneapolis regional. “We’ve competed against a Big Ten team (Purdue, whom 27-5 Missouri defeated to advance to the regional semifinal) and that wasn’t a...

Unafraid of introducing his players to advanced statistics, Gophers coach Richard Pitino routinely tells his squad where they stand among college basketball’s top teams in stats not included in a box score. He prints out charts that combine traditional and advanced statistics, discusses them with players at practice and has an assistant track them during games to help with adjustments....

Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was optimistic punt returner Marcus Sherels will be able to play Sunday at Jacksonville, which would be a boost to a special-teams unit that struggled in several phases in last week’s loss to Dallas. Sherels has missed three of the past four games because of injury, including the previous two. Adam Thielen and Cordarrelle Patterson assumed...